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AMMAN, (PIC)– Dr. Mahmoud Al-Zahhar, a political bureau member of Hamas, has affirmed that his movement had received warnings from Egypt and a number of international official parties, which he did not name, that Israel was planning a new war on the Gaza Strip.

Zahhar told the Jordanian paper Al-Ghad published on Sunday that Palestinian resistance factions were anticipating the Israeli aggression and preparing for it.

He did not rule out a new Israeli war on Gaza due to the Arab and international silence regarding what the Palestinian people are suffering in the occupied lands.

The Hamas leader said that Palestinian forces and factions in Gaza agreed on an understanding to guide armed struggle, explaining that they would refrain from any armed activity that does not serve national interest and escalate whatever may entail positive results.

The agreement stipulates responding to Israeli attacks and incursions while refraining from armed struggle in the event the Israeli aggressions came to a halt, Zahhar elaborated.

In the same context, Ehab Al-Ghussain, the spokesman for the interior ministry in Gaza, said that the agreement does not mean giving up resistance, but rather denying Israel any pretext to launch a new war.

He told a local radio station on Saturday that controlling the field condition is one of the methods of running the battle with the “enemy”.

GAZA, (PIC)– Asia Convoy 1 head Feroz Mesberola said the convoy’s naval vessel carrying 20 tons of humanitarian aid valued at one million dollars docked at Port El Arish, Egypt Tuesday morning in its final stop for the aid to be unloaded onto trucks that will carry it to the Gaza Strip through Rafah.

The convoy’s activists earlier flew from Syria to Egypt before crossing over to the Gaza Strip through Rafah. The multi-national mission set out Monday morning on a tour of Gaza to assess the region’s situation.

Reaching the Shifa hospital in Gaza in the course of the tour, Mesberola said the facility’s medical staff are an elemental part of the Palestinian resistance of the Israeli occupation. Israel wants to kill Palestinians with illnesses, he said.

“You provide aid and well-being to the Palestinians despite the difficulties you suffer. We found the hospital to be very clean and advanced in its services,” he went on to say.

“Shame on America and Israel for not allowing the hospital to finish some of its buildings until now. Israel fears the cement that the Palestinians build with.”

“We feel it is our duty to offer aid and needed medicines to the hospital, so we are preparing Convoy Asia 2, which we hope will arrive June this year.”

Ebraman Abdurrahman, heading the convoy’s Indonesian delegation, announced that the Indonesian government will erect a hospital in the Beit Lahia district, a project that was kicked off in 2008 in northern Gaza in cooperation with the health ministry.

Rome – PNN – Hundreds of people organized protests in a number of European cities this week marking the second anniversary of the Israeli war on Gaza.

EU Groups Protest Cast Lead of 2008

During the 22-days long offensive, which Israeli called Cast Lead operation, 1,500 Palestinians were killed and as many as 5,000 people were injured. The Israeli army launched attacks from sea, land, and air on December 27 2008 and stopped it on January 18 2009.

The assault was later condemned by a UN investigation, which found evidence that Israel had committed war crimes and crimes against humanity.

On Monday Peace campaigners and activists for Palestinian human rights gathered at the Israeli embassy in London. The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) has organized the vigil with a coalition of partners across the UK.

Sarah Colborne, PSC’s Director of Campaigns and Operations, said before the action : “The vigil will send a clear message to Israel that its barbarity in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead has not, and will not, be forgotten.

“Israel must be held to account for the crimes it has committed, and is continuing to commit, against the Palestinian people. Allowing Israel to act with impunity simply encourages further war crimes. In the interests of peace and justice for all, Israeli violations of international law must end.” Colborne added.

Palestinian Student Collation in Belgium

Meanwhile in Rome, Italy, scores of protesters marched holding banners demanding the Italian government to support the Palestinians nation in their struggle for legal rights. Another simmlier protest was organized by the Palestinian Student Collation in Belgium.

Israel’s siege of Gaza is now in its fourth year. Two years after Operation Cast Lead, the siege means that Gaza’s infrastructure – including schools, hospitals, factories and sewage systems – has still not been repaired and people are still living in the rubble of their homes destroyed by Israeli troops, or in makeshift tents.

Israeli military chief, speaking on the anniversary of Israel’s deadly offensive on the Gaza Strip, says his forces are ready for a new war on the besieged enclave.

Israeli Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Gabi Ashkenazi said on Monday in Tel Aviv, “We see the Hamas as responsible for the situation in Gaza and we take him (Hamas) as accountable for that. We don’t want to escalate the situation but we will be ready for any development,” the Associated Press reported.

The comments came in apparent reference to home-made projectiles, reportedly flown from Gaza, which are seldom known to have caused any casualties or considerable damage to Israeli properties.

Under the pretext of responding to the rocket attacks, Israel’s military launches regular disproportionate attacks on Gaza, not refraining from inflicting human or material losses.

On Sunday, Israeli troops killed two Palestinians in the east of the southern city of Khan Younis in the strip, AFP reported. Earlier in the month, at least five people were killed by an Israeli aerial assault on the town of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza.

Ashkenazi said earlier in December that “the next round (of fighting) will be extensive,” Israeli website Ynetnews had reported.

The December 2008-January 2009 operations killed more than 1,400 Palestinians, inflicting a damage of above $1.6 billion on the coastal sliver’s economy.

The war either destroyed or badly damaged thousands of homes in Gaza, putting the enclave on a long road to recovery amid a strict siege, which has been in place since mid-June 2007.

The United Nations fact-finding mission on the Gaza conflict has found Tel Aviv guilty of committing war crimes and possible crimes against humanity during the deadly operation.

The report by the UN mission blamed Israel for deliberate targeting of civilians and using white phosphorus bombs in residential areas, notably on the UN Relief and Works Agency compound in the Gaza City as well as two Gaza-based hospitals.